For the establishment and maintenance of global peace and security, to what extent is collective security the best hope for achieving this goal?
...collective security, therefore there is no cooperative effort to prevent the dangers that the world has been faced with during the past, and even presently. This is evident during the Interwar Period from 1919 to 1939. The League did not take a collective effort to deter the ambitious Nazi German movements (such as hegemony and racial purification) and make Germany uphold the international laws outlined in the Treaty of Versailles 1919. Although it was viewed that the terms of the peace treaty were harsh, the League of Nations could have amended parts of the treaty that were felt to be unreasonable. However, with the League using the policy of appeasement instead of force or impose economic sanctions to deter Germany’s actions leading up to World War II, these efforts ultimately destroyed the principles to make League of Nations work for the betterment of our future. Coming out of World War II, it was viewed that “‘... our disillusionment after the last war, we gave up the hope of achieving [global] peace because we [did not have] the courage to fulfill our responsibilities in an admittedly imperfect world.’” These words from Franklin D. Roosevelt, one of the former presidents of the United States of America, have been considered as warning for all ages. Without the establishment of a fully functional collective security institution, war would and will be inevitable for the future. To ensure those international arrangements for global peace and stability to occur, the realities of power, whether it is military, economic, or technological strengths must be accounted for in these organizations. One notable incident in history where the reality of power was clearly evident was during the Cold War. During this time there was a fear of a nuclear war where the entire world would be destroyed if both the superpowers, the United States of America (USA) and the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), decided to use their nuclear technology to end their conflict. At the time it was not perceived that the development of nuclear weaponry would act as both a stabilizing and destabilizing influence on international affairs. With fear on the rise, due to the constant development of nuclear technology, the global community sensed that a state of peace was created from the fear. Therefore, it could be inferred that peace can be established globally by a balance of terror. However, this state of terror did not last since trade opportunities were created for the remilitarization of other nation’s defense organizations. With various types of weaponry becoming available, there needs to be regulations put in place to reduce the possibility of attacks made by independent nation states and/or terrorist groups. “We are all vulnerable to new security threats, and to old threats that are evolving in complex and unpredictable ways. Either we allow this array of threats, and our responses to them, to divide us, or we come together to take effective action to meet all of them on the basis of a shared commitment to collective security.” Kofi A. Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, wrote the article entitled Courage...